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http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/21/business/21cong.html

$700 Billion Is Sought for Wall Street in Vast Bailout

The Bush administration on Saturday formally proposed a vast bailout of financial institutions in the United States, requesting unfettered authority for the Treasury Department to buy up to $700 billion in distressed mortgage-related assets from the private firms.

The proposal, not quite three pages long, was stunning for its stark simplicity. It would raise the national debt ceiling to $11.3 trillion. And it would place no restrictions on the administration other than requiring semiannual reports to Congress, granting the Treasury secretary unprecedented power to buy and resell mortgage debt.

“This is a big package, because it was a big problem,” President Bush said Saturday at a White House news conference, after meeting with President Álvaro Uribe of Colombia. “I will tell our citizens and continue to remind them that the risk of doing nothing far outweighs the risk of the package, and that, over time, we’re going to get a lot of the money back.”

A $700 billion expenditure on distressed mortgage-related assets would roughly be what the country has spent so far in direct costs on the Iraq war and more than the Pentagon’s total yearly budget appropriation. Divided across the population, it would amount to more than $2,000 for every man, woman and child in the United States.

Mr. President, how much is "a lot"? Maybe half? Maybe not even that much?

Another question. Do we all still have to go on pretending that what we have in this country is anything even remotely related to "free market" Capitalism? Can we all stop fooling ourselves now? This is Nanny State Capitalism, for the big Capitalists.

I will say that one thing is that the fbi is going to try to go after individuals allegedly complicit in loan frauds. I have a cousin who investigates alleged loan fraud for the bank she works for. She used to be a loan officer. Apparently some institutions saw the issue coming. I have not had a chance to ask her about what she thinks of the situation. She probably could not comment anyway about it. Skip tracing might be an up and coming business now. Bank and financial institution auditing would be so much fun. I suspect the the accounting industry is about to get another major hit. Companies always blame everything on the accountants.

It gives me hope that this criminal bill to bail out Wall Street did not pass. Let's hope these bastards don't change their votes.

Awesome, I'm glad it didn't pass.

I'm watching Obama, giving a speech explaining why we need this "rescue" plan. He's dumbing it down to a neighbor's house on fire,maybe they were careless and smoked in bed, but the first thing you need to do is put the fire out so that it doesn't spread to your house.

It's just sickening. Both Obama and McCain are eager to give $700 Bil to the bankers. Still no explanation of how spending $700 Bil for "toxic" worthless assets will get these criminally corrupt investment banks to increase lending. Still no explanation of how the tax payers will get the $700 Bil back for these now held "toxic" worthless assets. They talk about some obscure auction process achieving a good price for these worthless assets. But an auction doesn't work, and all the game theory in the world doesn't work, when there is only one buyer (the sucker taxpayer).

But when he calls it a "rescue plan" instead of a "bailout", the crowd cheers. He says "the plan wasn't explained right", that the taxpayers will not be "bailing out" Wall Street, we will be "investors", and "if done right we will make money". And again the crowd cheers.

We may be too dumb to save our democracy. It's all smoke and mirrors folks. This will be the greatest bank robbery in the history of the world.

The bill will be passed by the end of the week. It's just too depressing.

Now Bill Clinton is all over TV explaining why it's in the interests of the little guy to give away $700 Bil to the bankers. It's a giveaway. We will not get that money back. It will not ease the credit crisis. It will not get the lending flowing. They are lying to bailout their criminal masters. Truly nauseating.

I just emailed my Senators, Clinton and Schumer, to tell them to vote against this bailout bill. I may also call them. If you care, you should contact your Senators too, and fast. The vote is tonight. You can find your Senators' contact info here http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/

greggh wrote:I just emailed my Senators, Clinton and Schumer,

Christ what a pair. So glad I moved out of N.Y..

If I lose anymore of my retirement investment. That industry will have more to worry about than just the bailout.
Rambo fan club members unite!

Our Congress just sold us out. If your House Reps and Senators voted for this bill vote them out in the next election. Every one of those Yea voters must go.

They think they can continue to take millions in campaign contributions from financial institutions and we will continue to bend over. We have to show them they're wrong.

greggh wrote:Our Congress just sold us out. If your House Reps and Senators voted for this bill vote them out in the next election. Every one of those Yea voters must go.

They think they can continue to take millions in campaign contributions from financial institutions and we will continue to bend over. We have to show them they're wrong.

Absolutely right.

I just thought I'd post the comment I submitted to my Senators and my Congressman through their websites. They all ended up voting for the bailout. If your Congresscritters voted for the bill you should contact them and let them know you will be voting them out.

I am urging you to vote against this bailout bill. I don't care that it's now called a 'rescue plan' instead. The fact is that it still has not been explained how giving away $700 Bil to these financial institutions is going to ease the credit crisis. And that's what it is, a giveaway.

The taxpayers will not get this money back. I, and everyone I know, do not believe Paulson, this administration, all of the legislators, both Presidential candidates, and now even former President Clinton, trying to sell the idea that redistributing $700 Bil from poor and middle class taxpayers to the criminally wealthy will help the economy.

Please don't believe what they are saying, and don't be pressured into voting for this terribly unjust bill. The whole idea of having the taxpayers foot the bill for these "toxic" worthless assets is criminal. A reverse auction process, and game theory in general, just does not work when there is only one buyer (the sucker taxpayer), that HAS to buy.

There are other alternatives to help the economy and protect the average citizen. You and the rest of Congress need to say "NO", and get to work and come up with real solutions, and not be tricked and bullied into passing this bill.

Sincerely,
Gregg H

I could use some of that money (700 billion) too thanks to ike.. You can't see where the roof is missing from here though except for the tarp.

.

greggh wrote:I just thought I'd post the comment I submitted to my Senators and my Congressman through their websites. They all ended up voting for the bailout. If your Congresscritters voted for the bill you should contact them and let them know you will be voting them out.

I am urging you to vote against this bailout bill. I don't care that it's now called a 'rescue plan' instead. The fact is that it still has not been explained how giving away $700 Bil to these financial institutions is going to ease the credit crisis. And that's what it is, a giveaway.

The taxpayers will not get this money back. I, and everyone I know, do not believe Paulson, this administration, all of the legislators, both Presidential candidates, and now even former President Clinton, trying to sell the idea that redistributing $700 Bil from poor and middle class taxpayers to the criminally wealthy will help the economy.

Please don't believe what they are saying, and don't be pressured into voting for this terribly unjust bill. The whole idea of having the taxpayers foot the bill for these "toxic" worthless assets is criminal. A reverse auction process, and game theory in general, just does not work when there is only one buyer (the sucker taxpayer), that HAS to buy.

There are other alternatives to help the economy and protect the average citizen. You and the rest of Congress need to say "NO", and get to work and come up with real solutions, and not be tricked and bullied into passing this bill.

Sincerely,
Gregg H

"Paulson's toxic-loan plan never got started"
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-b ... 2546.story

Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson's decision to abandon plans to buy troubled bank assets shows that he has come to two conclusions about what was once the chief focus of the government's $700-billion bailout:

The first is that it wouldn't work. The second is that the economists and financial experts who agitated to have capital injected directly into the banking system now appear to have been right all along.

It took Paulson a while to wise up a bit. Isn't it amazing that ordinary shmucks like me and most Americans knew right off the bat that having the taxpayer buy worthless toxic assets was wrong? But Congress was easily fooled and pressured into approving this approach. The Secretary of the Treasurey and the Federal Reserve Chairman thought this was a good idea just one month ago. Are they criminal, or criminally incompetent?